The mystery of metamorphosis
Subtitle: a scientific detective story
By: Frank Ryan
Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub.
Published: 2011
Place of publication: White River Junction, Vt
Language: eng
Number of pages: 294
ISBN-13: 9781603583411
Subjects: Evolution (Biology); Metamorphosis; Larvae; Hybridization
Other titles: Metamorphosis
Description: How does a caterpillar transform into a butterfly, or plankton-feeding larvae grow into gorgeous sea stars? Metamorphosis has captivated our imagination for thousands of years. Yet it remains, largely, a mystery. Award-winning author Frank Ryan delves into that mystery with the keen eye of a scientist, the skill of an expert storyteller, and the tenacity of a detective tracking down one of science's least-understood phenomena.
Notes: "A Sciencewriters book."

Includes bibliographical references (p. [265]-280) and index.
Table of contents: title: The beautiful mystery; title: Anomalies in the Tree of Life. The birth of an idea ; A puzzle wrapped in an enigma ; First experiments ; The price of iconoclasm ; Challenging the Tree of Life ; "This is impossible!" ; Catastrophe; title: The butterfly's tale. The evening of the Great Peacock ; The science of life ; Elementary questions and deductions ; The phoenix in its crucible ; Two souls in one body ; Bizarre extrapolations ; Assembling the jigsaw puzzle ; Ecology's magic bullet; title: New perspectives. On the steps of York Minster ; The first genetic testing ; The evolutionary potential of hybridization ; A new life-form; title: The molecular age. The puzzle of the hornworm brain ; Aristotle or Darwin? ; Cues and common links ; A tale in a tail ; Of frogs and their relatives ; The wonder of development ; The human brain; title: A sting in the tail.